Our current research interest is focused on nanomaterial design, synthesis and applications. The nanomaterials we are studying include metal nanoparticles, polymer nanostructures, and nanocomposite materials. In this talk, I will specifically discuss our recent results in gold nanoparticle research. Gold nanoparticles are among one of the most extensively studied nanoparticle materials due to their unique size-dependent properties at nanometer scale. Bulk gold is a well-known conductive material. However, when reduced to the nanometer scale, gold nanoparticles behave more like semiconductors. This property has stimulated wide interest in the application of gold nanoparticles as single electron transistors for future nanocomputer development.

Our research laboratory has been mainly working on the synthesis of gold nanoparticles with novel chemical structures. In order to assemble gold nanoparticles into desired devices and material structures through a chemical approach, gold nanoparticles often need to be modified with surface functional groups. Current methods and reactions only lead to the synthesis of gold nanoparticles with multiple unknown numbers of surface functional groups. In contrast to the reported studies, our group has recently proposed and started to investigate the synthesis of gold nanoparticles with a single surface functional group. With a controlled number of surface functional groups, these gold nanoparticles can be treated as individual molecules and nanoparticle devices may be developed through synthetic chemistry approaches. Details of the results obtained and future work will be discussed.